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Yushin officer system devised to reduce political intervention

Yushin officer system devised to reduce political intervention

Posted October. 25, 2017 08:00,   

Updated October. 25, 2017 08:17

한국어

The “Yushin government officer system” has turned out to have been devised to reduce possible intervention of the military in politics. The system had existed for more than 10 years from the late 1970s and let military officers change their occupation to a government official.

“We received this information from a research officer of the former Defense Security Command who planned this system,” said a Seoul National University research team of the Academy of Korean Studies. A joint workshop of “Research Project on Modern Oral History of Korea” will be held on Friday.

The official name of the system was “special employment system of military officers” through which 784 military officers became government officials between 1977 and 1988. Some claimed former President Park Chung-hee was considering the future of his son Park Ji-man who was a Korea Military Academy cadet at that time.

According to the research team, the then research officer wrote a research paper that pointed out the issue of personnel congestion in the military as a cause of coup d'état, citing the 1973’s “Yoon Pil-yong Incident,” an incident that Capital Garrison Commander Yoon Pil-yong plotted a coup. The research officer added that he crafted this system by expanding on his research paper.

The Seoul National University research team also gathered a testimony from the research officer that former President Chun Doo-hwan invited military commander to the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae and gave 10 million won to force an unjust absentee ballot in the military for the 13th presidential election in 1987.



Jong-Yeob JO jjj@donga.com